Computed tomography data of different resolution of expanded polypropylene foams of different density

Abstract

In this work, the morphology of three EPP bead foams with closed cells and different densities is studied using x-ray computed tomography. The specimens of 10 mm diameter and 10 mm length were cut from steam-chest-molded plates of 40 mm thickness. The plates are based on beads of different bulk densities (Neopolen (BASF) P92HD 105, 92HD 130, 92HD 180) and welded together in an Energy Foamer 5.0 of Kurtz Ersa using the crack-fill-method. The image acquisition is performed on two very different X-ray computed tomography systems. Scans of the whole specimens, further on referred to as "coarse", were performed using a v|tome|x L 450 system from GE located at the Institute of Lightweight Engineering and Polymer Technology at TU Dresden. Additional scans of certain regions of interest of the identical specimens with a high resolution X-ray computed tomography system Zeiss Versa 520 were carried out at the Dresden Center for Nanoanalysis (DCN). The results are further on referred to as "high resolution" scans. For analysing and statistical describing the micro- and meso-structure the cell walls are further on segmented from the different CT-volumes using WEKA-segmentation provided by the open-source package distribution FIJI. The provided data set enables the direct comparison of the results of different tomography setups at selected regions of interest and the deeper understanding of the multi-scale morphology of bead foams.